The fight for religious freedom in San Francisco continues on. Read this breaking news from CBS in San Francisco about Archbishop Cordileone’s courageous stand for Catholic schools:

“Two Bay Area lawmakers are seeking an investigation of working conditions at high schools administrated by the Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco, over the archbishop’s proposed morality clauses for teachers.

“California cannot become a laboratory for discrimination under the guise of religion,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter sent Monday. They said the rules “set a dangerous precedent for workers’ rights through manipulations of law that deprive employees of civil rights guaranteed to all Californians.”

This is an outrage and a blatant violation of religious liberty.

For asking employees of a private Catholic school to publicly practice what they preach, Archbishop Cordileone gets completely slammed by the media and the very teachers he is trying to guide.

Investigating “working conditions” in Catholic schools is just an excuse to discriminate against religious organization.

The Archbishop released a document clarifying Catholic teaching on issues such as the sanctity of all life, the definition of marriage, contraception, and other points of Catholic doctrine. He asked that teachers in Catholic schools “avoid fostering confusion among the faithful and any dilution of the schools’ primary Catholic mission. [They] are expected to arrange and conduct their lives so as not to visibly contradict, undermine or deny these truths.”

He wrote that this was not meant to target teachers for dismissal or micromanage their personal lives. But for the sake of the students, they are asked to notpublicly contradict Church teaching.

And now a group of eight California lawmakers are demanding the Archbishop “reconsider and withdraw” the reforms he instituted. These anti-Catholic politicians accused the Archbishop of being “divisive” and are demanding that he “stop his attack” on lesbians and gays.

The Archbishop responded late last week: “would you hire a campaign manager who advocates policies contrary to those that you stand for, and who shows disrespect toward you and the Democratic Party in general?… I respect your right to employ or not employ whomever you wish to advance your mission. I simply ask the same respect from you.”

It’s worth asking: Why is this group of lawmakers (all 8 are Democrats) trying to get an bishop to change Church policies? I thought members of the Democratic Party believed in a “separation of Church and State”?

But of course, the First Amendment right to religious freedom was not written to muzzle the freedoms of American citizens. That constitutional right was written precisely to protect the rights of all Americans, including Archbishop Cordileone, from ambitious and powerful lawmakers like the eight who wrote that letter.

Standing up to the secular elites is not easy. Bishops who defend the faith are rarely applauded.

That’s why we decided to write this letter.

All Catholics should be thankful for courageous shepherds like Archbishop Cordileone.

He needs our prayers and support. We want him to know CV is behind him 100%.

With a pro-life majority in the House and the Senate, now is the time to stand for life. On January 22, hundreds of thousands of people will march peacefully in Washington, D.C. to protest the 1973 Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade, that legalized abortion in the United States. This young and energetic movement is the fruit of many years of labor by dedicated pro-life activists across the country. Join your community to march for life!

If you know of a march that we did not include, please reply in the comments below with a link to the event and we’ll add it to the list!

The Oklahoma City black mass is going on as planned at the Civic Center on Sunday, Sept. 21, but in a somewhat altered form. The usually nude female “altar” will be wearing lingerie, vinegar replaces human urine, and the pilfered Consecrated Host has been returned to its rightful owner, the Catholic Church, in the person of Archbishop Coakley of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City.

(Click here to learn about the clever legal maneuver that got the Church’s property returned to Her, and the fantastical story–or stories–the black-mass organizer spun to explain how he got it.)

“I am profoundly relieved that this group has returned to Archbishop Coakley the Consecrated Host which they intended to desecrate, but am still concerned that they have not backed away from all the other blasphemies and sacrileges involved in this ritual worship of Satan.”

This quote is part of a larger story I wrote for Breitbart News — click here for that — about Msgr. Brankin, who is the exorcist for his diocese, and another, unnamed exorcist, which today was picked up on Drudge Report. It also contains a video in which the black mass organizers declares his ultimately short-lived defiance of the lawsuit filed to retrieve the Host.

Anyway, Archbishop Coakley has arranged a Eucharistic Procession and a Benediction service to take place Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. local time at St. Francis of Assisi in Oklahoma City. He’s also asked Catholics (especially those from neighboring Texas), other Christians and all people of good will to join him.

Of course, there are millions of concerned folks who won’t be able to make the trek to Oklahoma, so Catholic satellite network EWTN is stepping in to help.

As reported today on EWTN’s blog, on Sunday at 8 p.m. ET, Father John Paul Mary of the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word is leading a Eucharistic Holy Hour of Reparation.

The goal of the Holy Hour is to “make reparation for these blasphemous events, and to pray for the conversion of the organizers of the black mass and those attending this sacrilegious event.”

The blog quotes Father John Paul as saying: “A single act of charity is greater than all the evil in the world. You can think there is more evil in the world than holiness. That’s what the evil one wants you to think. But where sin abounds, grace abounds even more (Romans 5:20).

“What the nuns do in the slums of Calcutta, what the missionaries do in the deserts of Africa, what the homeschooling mother does in teaching the faith and sacrificing for her children, builds up the Body of Christ. People look at the Church as an institution, but the Church is much greater than that. It is an actual living organism.

“When we live lives of charity, we build up the Church here on earth. The only way to combat evil is with charity and goodness. Period!”

So get those rosaries ready!

Here’s his video plea:

UPDATE: Protesters are gathering at the Oklahoma City Civic Center, and one of The Oklahoman’s reporters in on scene, sending photos and comments to social media. The paper’s online site, NewsOK, has a page tracking the updates. Click here for that.

In case you hadn’t heard, some satanists in Oklahoma City are putting on their annual edition of the black mass (I wouldn’t dignify it by capitalizing it) on Sept. 21, complete with, they say, a Consecrated Host.

Possibly due to the black mass controversy that erupted in Boston back in May — click here for a piece I did for Breitbart News that sums of up the whole thing, with a twist — the Oklahoma City event, which has been going on for a while, is front-page news this year.

On Saturday morning, I talked with Oklahoma state legislator Rebecca Hamilton, who blogs at Public Catholic, about what Archbishop Paul Coakley is doing to handle the controversy.

Click here to see the details in another Breitbart piece from Monday, but basically he’s calling for prayers to St. Michael, Holy Hours and a Eucharistic procession and prayer service on Sept. 21 at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Oklahoma City (pictured above).

Concerned that the turnout in Catholic-light Oklahoma might seem thin compared to Catholic-heavy Boston, Hamilton and Coakley have put out a call to their neighbor to the South, saying:

Can you wait with me for one hour?

Sometimes Catholics wait with Him in Eucharistic Devotion. But, on Sept. 21, we are called to wait with Him in a situation that amounts to a living witness to our Faith.

Satanists have planned a black mass at the Oklahoma Civic Center on that day. We ask Texas Catholics to join Archbishop Coakley as he leads a Eucharistic Procession, followed by a Benediction, at 3 p.m. Central Time, at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church, at 1901 NW 18th, in Oklahoma City.

Let’s make this planned desecration of the Holy Mass and Our Lord in the Eucharist redound into a public outpouring of our love for Jesus. This black mass, which is intended to mock Jesus Christ, can be a time of witness to how much we love Him.

Texans, don’t miss this chance to stand up for Jesus. Be in Oklahoma City at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church at 3 p.m. on Sept. 21.

We’ll see whether the Lone Star State comes through for the Sooner State!

A lot of what Hamilton and I talked about didn’t make it into the Breitbart piece, but it’s thoughtful, provocative stuff and deserves to be heard.

The Oklahoma City Civic Center that’s renting out space for the black mass fears being sued if it cancels it, making Hamilton wonder if a preacher wanting to stage a Koran burning would get the same consideration.

She said, “The point here is that we’ve become a post-Christian culture. That’s really what we’re dancing around here, is that America has become post-Christian America, at least in terms of its government and the social ethos that’s emanating from certain — I hate to use the word because it’s so overused — but certain elite organizations.

“It’s a very interesting situation for us to be in, because fully 70 percent of Americans are Christians, yet we’re allowing ourselves to be run over. This is a democracy, and we don’t have to allow ourselves to be run over.”

Of course, if Christians do try to exercise their rights in the public square, they’re immediately accused of being haters, bigots and would-be theocrats. That’s something with which Hamilton is very familiar.

“Yeah, I don’t see it that way,” she said. “I’ve had people call me a theocrat, because I’m pro-life. I’m an elected official, and so that makes me a theocrat. That is patent nonsense.

“The truth of the matter is, as far as I can tell, and this is from being pretty up close and personal with the ugly side of politics. I hesitate to call these people liberals, because I don’t think they have much to do with liberalism.

“I call them nihilists. That’s what they are to me. What I’ve seen is that object to the fact that traditional Christianity has values and standards which limit the things that they want to do.

“Gay marriage would be an example; abortion would be an example; polygamy is another example; euthanasia is an example; egg harvesting is an example; pornography is an example.

“You can just go on and on, but the root of it is, every time, is that they want to exploit people, and Christianity says, ‘You can’t do this.’ Now they’ve created all sorts of arguments based on what Mary Ann Glendon calls ‘rights talk.’ They’ve imbued people with the right to kill, that it’s a human right to kill your child.

“That’s patent nonsense.

“You can exploit women and harvest their bodies like farm animals. That is patent nonsense. It’s compassionate to kill people because they’re sick or old or helpless. That’s patent nonsense.

“But they’re able to sell this because they control so much of the media, and the just pound it as propaganda endlessly.

“The problem here is, and this comes from having been in politics. I have held office for 18 years, and I have confronted this evil over and over and over again, is when somebody wants to kill another person, or somebody wants to exploit another person, and you tell them they can’t, they become totally vicious.

“That’s what we’re dealing with here. There is no deeper construct than that. We are dealing with the raw emotions of people who have given themselves permission to destroy other people, and they hate Christianity because Christianity says you can’t do that.

“And if you want to get really basic, that’s Satan versus Jesus, and that’s what we’re dealing with.”

Nothing motivates Americans like a child abduction. Search parties are organized, Amber Alerts are issued, flyers printed, the media shifts into overdrive plastering the photo of the innocent missing child on social media and television broadcasts– all in a desperate race against time to rescue the kidnapped child.

Having spent a legal career in child advocacy searching for missing children, abducted by strangers and/or parents, the violent kidnapping of 12 nuns from the St. Thecla Orthodox monastery and orphanage in the Christian city of Ma’loula, Syria by radical Islamists strikes a painful chord. Yet, the apathy and inaction from the international community boggles the mind.

Since September, intense fighting and violent clashes are plaguing Ma’loula, Syria which is considered to be one of the birthplaces of Christianity. Ma’loula is home to a number of ancient Christian shrines and monasteries, which are listed as UNESCO world heritage sites. Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is still spoken there. With the onslaught of violence, most of Ma’loula’s Christians fled the town leaving only Muslims and the St. Thecla nuns behind. Until December 2, 2013, the nuns were caring for dozens of orphaned children when Islamist rebels stormed the monastery and kidnapped 12 nuns and 3 other women staying at the monastery.

In his weekly audience, Pope Francis immediately called for the release of the nuns. The pontiff appears to be the only global leader raising his voice in protest. Where is the outrage from the international community over this senseless kidnapping? Since their abduction, the nuns have been seen only once in a video posted on Al-Jazeera.

What kind of monsters attack a convent and kidnap innocent religious women who dedicated their life to prayer and the care of war orphans? Now that the sisters are missing who is caring for the children left behind at the monastery?

With diplomatic ties to the outlawed Syrian government severed, there exists little diplomatic will to rescue these innocent women by our government or the international community. While some quiet low level diplomatic efforts attempt to negotiate a release with these Islamist rebels, the complexity and futility of violence in the Middle East perpetrated by stateless rebels complicates negotiations. The escalating violence against Christians is evident with this latest kidnapping of 12 nuns, who are joining two orthodox bishops and a priest kidnapped and held by hardline Islamic rebels since April.

When will Christians in the West awake to the widespread violence against Christians in the Middle East and Africa? The systematic and violent targeting of peaceful Christians, their churches and holy shrines is rapidly spreading with impunity.

There is no safe harbor or home for Christians in the Middle East. It has been estimated that 50% of Iraq’s indigenous Christians have fled due to religious persecution and violence by jihadists. Where did they flee? Many fled to Syria only to be faced with unprecedented religious violence in Syria. It is reminiscent of German Jews who fled to France and the Netherlands to avoid the Nazis only to be targeted in their adoptive homes.

Since 2003, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), estimates that almost a million Christians have left Iraq. Those few that remain face an ongoing persecution and martyrdom. In 2010 an al-Qaida group threatened that “the doors of destruction and rivers of blood will be opened upon them.” The death toll on Christians continues to mount.

The Middle East and Africa are bleeding Christians. Egypt has lost 100,000 Christian Copts since the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak’s government as violent Islamic forces have attacked Christians and their churches. The continent of Africa is besieged by from the murderous holocaust of Christians. 95 percent of Christians have left northern Nigeria because the Islamist group Boko Haram has been slaughtering them. A dozen armed Muslim men stormed a church in Pakistan, seriously wounding several Christians; armed men destroyed a church in Algeria and 50 Palestinian Muslims stoned Christian tourists on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Muslims targeted and killed Christians in Uganda, Somalia and throughout Africa.

Have we learned from the lessons of recent history? Apathy, indifference and the conspiracy of silence will foster continued genocide of Christians. As the passive bystander, the world community ultimately becomes complicit in this religious annihilation.

Let there be no mistake: Indifference and inaction feed the violence and embolden the aggressor. Religious persecution often starts out slowly with the passage of an Islamic constitution or law which bans Christian beliefs, practice and worship. Law quickly morphs into violence at the Christians. Ask the Sudanese.

Sudan President Omar al-Bashir has made it clear that Christians are not welcome in Sudan.

He intends to make the Sudanese Constitution 100% Islamic. The ongoing ethnic cleansing of Christians in Sudan has seen rapes, kidnappings, and thousands of deaths with nearly 300,000 refugees fleeing their homes and violence.

It is time to put the pressure on. Let the international community know that Americans care and demand action against this systematic annihilation of Christians. Let the international community know that Christians are united to stop these persecutions. Send a strong message that violent Jihadists will incur the wrath of the civilized world. Make no mistake; The goal of these jihadists is to force Christianity into obscurity.

Protest, Publicize and Pray. The Sisters of St. Thecla only want to serve the Lord and the poor orphans of Syria. Imagine this happening in America. Imagine the religious persecution of say, the Little Sisters of the Poor.

You may not have heard about it. I hadn’t until last night. But today in Albuquerque, New Mexico, city residents are voting on the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Ordinance — a measure that would, according to National Right to Life News, “protect pain-capable unborn children from death by abortion.”

This would mean a late-term (20 weeks gestation and later) abortion ban in the city that is considered the “late-term abortion capital of the country.” Over $177,000 in taxpayer dollars were spent on abortions in Albuquerque in 2012 alone. The city is almost 50% Hispanic. Following voter demographics, this means it leans significantly Democratic. Those opposed to the ban are outspending pro-lifers by a factor of 4-1 in their attempts to canvass the city and influence public opinion. It is the first time in America that residents of a city will have the opportunity to vote directly on this issue, and it has become a battleground for hearts and minds.

Despite all of this, something strange is happening: supporters of the ban are winning. From the Washington Free Beacon:

[A] September poll taken by the Albuquerque Journal found that voters supported the ban 54-39, making late term abortion less popular among residents than Mitt Romney was in 2012. Nearly 60 percent of Hispanic voters supported the ban, as did 35 percent of Democrats.

“When voters are confronted with the reality of late term abortion, they recoil at that,” Buchanan says by way of explaining the poll results.

But that was before the flood. Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, NARAL, and Organizing for America have quietly dumped more than $800,000 into Albuquerque, controlling a near monopoly on television advertising. Professional activists have been bused in from Arizona and Colorado to help union members canvass Albuquerque neighborhoods using the technology that carried Obama to victory in 2012.

The ban’s supporters are being outspent 4-1 even with a last-minute, six-figure push from Susan B. Anthony List. And that’s not their only disadvantage. At one point I asked volunteer coordinator Peter Zeikus about the phone bank.

“We’ve got the most advanced system in the world working for us. It’s called I-360—the same one McCain used,” he says.

Nine months ago the ballot initiative was a fantasy shared by four people. The idea sprang up in February 2013 when former political strategist Elisa Martinez pitched Catholic activist Sarah Wilson and “anti-abortion ambassadors” Bud and Tara Shaver on the concept of putting the fetal pain ban to a popular vote. They began knocking on doors to gather the necessary 12,100 signatures to get on the ballot in late spring. They turned in 27,000 in August.

“We have a core group of dedicated supporters that’s spent 12 hours a day to reach voters in the city for months,” Martinez says. “People, even pro-choice people, realize there’s something wrong with the killing of babies that are viable or on the cusp of viability.”

This fight is far from over. National Right to Life Newsreported yesterday that there had already been significantly more early-voting activity than there was in the the mayoral race:

The office of the Albuquerque city clerk said almost 44,000 Albuquerque voters have already cast ballots early in person, “twice as high as the mayoral election where 21,000 voters cast early ballots in what turned out to be a low-turnout election,” according to the New Mexico Telegram.There is no reason to doubt that the final tally will be extremely close.

We need to pray for the people of Albuquerque, that they will be open to truth and that they will vote to defend the defenseless. If you know anyone in Albuquerque, find out if they are aware of this issue and urge them to get out and vote.

This ballot initiative is of national importance. Allowing people to vote directly on such bans really brings the abortion issue to the doorstep of the individual citizen. If the vote for the ban succeeds — particularly in a city as deeply pro-abortion as Albuquerque — would set the stage for similar successful initiatives in cities across America.

I’ve said for a while that I believe the tide is turning on this issue. Local elections like this are where the larger victory starts.

]]>https://www.catholicvote.org/a-critical-abortion-battle-is-being-fought-in-new-mexico-right-now/feed/1Lies, Libertarians, and the Future: The Virginia Election is a Bellwether for the Nationhttps://www.catholicvote.org/lies-libertarians-and-the-future-the-virginia-election-is-a-bellwether-for-the-nation/
https://www.catholicvote.org/lies-libertarians-and-the-future-the-virginia-election-is-a-bellwether-for-the-nation/#commentsTue, 05 Nov 2013 15:25:34 +0000Steve Skojechttp://www.catholicvote.org/?p=55725

It’s Election Day in Virginia. With polls putting the unlikable Terry McAuliffe ahead by six points at the eleventh hour, it’s anyone’s guess how this is going to turn out, but it’s not looking good for lovers of life and liberty.

In the mix is no small amount of misinformation. My 16-year-old daughter was assigned a research project for her American Government class, in which she was to write one page on all the candidates seeking office during this election. She came to me with a question: “Why are they saying that Ken Cuccinelli suports abortion?”

I told her that she must have been misreading something, but she insisted she’d seen reports in several places. Then, yesterday, I saw a report in the Washington Free Beaconthat confirmed the the existence of these lies:

Virginia Democrats are allegedly misrepresenting the positions held by Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli in an attempt to depress conservative turnout and using peer pressure to boost voter turnout among Democratic constituencies in the final days of that state’s gubernatorial race.

Del. Scott Lingamfelter, a Republican, said he received a robo-call on Sunday evening claiming that Cuccinelli supports the Affordable Care Act and taxpayer financing for abortions.

Cuccinelli vehemently opposes Obamacare, as the law is commonly known. He was the first state attorney general to challenge the law in court. He is also strongly opposed to abortion.

“They are shameless in their lies,” he wrote. “I guess they are trying to suppress GOP voters” in the governor’s race.

Of course, Terry McAuliffe is no stranger to corruption. In 2009, when he lost his previous bid to become governor of Virginia, The Daily Kosdescribed his “folly”:

Terry McAuliffe was an extraordinarily effective political fundraiser, but that would prove to be the undoing of the candidates who took the huge amounts of money he raised. Before TM lost his bid to become a Democratic Governor of Virginia last night, he had already contributed enormously to the poisoning of the reputations of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

The Daily Kos went on to cite at length a retrospective assessment from Counterpunch, detailing McAuliffe’s no scruples approach to fundraising as head of the DNC:

No enterprise was off-limits, no matter how tarnished the reputation of the company: weapons-makers, oil companies, chemical manufacturers, banks, sweatshop tycoons. Indeed, McAuliffe made his mark by targeting corporations with festering problems, ranging from liability suits to environmental and worker safety restraints to bothersome federal regulators. The more desperate these enterprises were for political intervention, the more money McAuliffe knew he could seduce into DNC coffers. What about environmental groups? Big labor? The traditional core of the Democratic Party? Not only didn’t their objections (assuming they voiced any) matter, they actually made McAuliffe’s pitch more appealing to the corporadoes. After all, the Republicans didn’t have any sway over these organizations. Triangulation, the backstabbing political playbook of Clintontime, originated as a fundraising gimmick. A very lucrative one.

And as The DailyKos noted, the 300-plus million McAuliffe raised came with “strings attached”. Insinuations of everything from insider trading in exchange for political favors to getting into bed with the Chinese intelligence followed.

At the time, The Daily Kos reached this conclusion: “Terry McAuliffe was damaged goods, and he wasn’t going anywhere in political office where these facts might again arise to haunt him. ”

I believe Sarvis is siphoning off the votes that Ken Cuccinelli needs to win. I believe that Ken Cuccinelli, as Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner wrote, “would arguably be the most libertarian governor in the United States if he wins”.

Cuccinelli trails Democrat Terry McAuliffe in all polls, while Libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis is pulling 10 percent of the vote. One national libertarian group is spending big to back Sarvis and attack Cuccinelli.

But Cuccinelli has libertarian bona fides: As attorney general he led the states aiming to kill Obamacare, with all its mandates, taxes, regulations, subsidies and intrusions. He wants to cut the state income tax rate by 15 percent for individuals and 33 percent for corporations.

Cuccinelli has an A rating from the NRA — earned while representing Fairfax County in the state Senate. He opposed smoking bans as a senator.

To a libertarian, all of the above looks good, but not extraordinary for a Republican. But there’s more.

Republican governors who sing paeans to the free market almost always make exceptions in order to be more “pro-business.” Cuccinelli, meanwhile, has angered much of his state’s business lobby by running against corporate welfare, opposing the tax hikes that Northern Virginia developers are seeking to pay for roads and public services and pledging to put special-interest tax credits on the chopping block.

Cuccinelli also often chooses government restraint over “law and order.”

When Virginia’s GOP tried to expand the death penalty in 2009, Cuccinelli was the only Republican to vote no — during a competitive GOP primary for attorney general.

Although not ready to support drug legalization like Sarvis, Cuccinelli has criticized the drug war as overzealous, and he said jailing marijuana dealers is a waste of taxpayer money. He told me he’s open to legalizing pot in Virginia if things go well in Colorado and Washington.

Attorney General Cuccinelli crusaded to exonerate Thomas Haynesworth, a black man wrongly convicted and jailed for 27 years. Cuccinelli argued successfully in court to get Haynseworth a rare “writ of actual innocence” — a feat only possible because state Sen. Cuccinelli had championed a law to make such exoneration easier.

Rand Paul and Ron Paul have endorsed Cuccinelli, as has the Republican Liberty Caucus of Virginia — the libertarian platoon within the state’s GOP.

And despite his big six-figure media buy from the mysterious “Purple PAC” (founded by this guy), Robert Sarvis appears to be no libertarian. Charles Cook at National Review brings to light his deviations from the liberty doctrine:

I can only imagine, therefore, that the better-informed voters in Virginia have been somewhat perplexed by Robert Sarvis, for in recent weeks he appears to have been doing his level best to give the impression that his party label is incidental. In a recent Reason interview, Sarvis explained that he was “not into the whole Austrian type, strongly libertarian economics,” preferring “more mainstream economics” instead. The candidate expanded on this during an oddly defensive interview with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, in which he seemed put off not so much by “strongly libertarian economics” as by libertarian economics per se. As governor, Sarvis told Todd, he would be hesitant to cut taxes, unsure as to how he might “reduce spending,” and open to indulging the largest piece of federal social policy since 1965 by expanding Virginia’s Medicaid program. I am generally a critic of the tendency of small-government types to try to purge their ranks of those deemed sufficiently impure, but I must confess that this interview left even me wondering whether Sarvis is in need of a dictionary.

Worse yet was Sarvis’s rambling interview with the Virginia Prosperity Project, in which the candidate expressed his enthusiasm for increasing gas levies, and for establishing a “vehicle-miles-driven tax.” It strikes me that it is almost impossible to square such a measure with any remotely coherent “libertarian” position on that most sacred of rights: privacy. Virginia’s mooted VMT plan requires the installation of government GPS systems in private cars — an astonishingly invasive proposal. Even if this isn’t what Sarvis has in mind, the fact remains that there is simply no way of determining how far an individual has driven without the government’s checking. On Twitter, an amusing fellow with a username not fit for print in this column responded to this idea by contending: “I’m no extremist, but if you put a black box in my vehicle and tax me per mile I will burn down everything you’ve ever loved.” What sort of “libertarian” doesn’t feel this way?

Looking through his platform, one is left with the impression that what Sarvis really means to say is that he is a social liberal. He is in favor of gay marriage, is (radically) pro-choice, and supports the legalization of marijuana. In this regard, he stands in stark contrast to the Republican candidate, Ken Cuccinelli, who is campaigning for a state marriage amendment, is staunchly pro-life, and, although critical of the War on Drugs and of the current sentencing rules, seems to be broadly against the legalization of pot.

The question, then, for anyone interested in taxonomy, is, Do Sarvis’s social positions make him a “libertarian” in any meaningful way? In my view they do not. Whatever America’s media class would have you believe, social liberalism does not equal libertarianism — and it never has. Social liberalism equals social liberalism.

First, the Democrats will benefit if Terry McAuliffe wins. If someone so stigmatized, so arrogant, so lacking in charisma can carry a state that until recently has gone red more often than blue, it signals a significant change. And if Terry McAuliffe wins, the abortion lobby wins. The pro-Obamacare crowd wins. The tax-and-spend liberals win, and Virginians will start paying thousands more per household in taxes in the very near future.

But establishment Republicans also win. The John McCains and Lindsey Grahams of this world who want nothing more than to crush those of libertarian instinct within their party, to exorcise the Tea Party caucus from its bowels. And they will get to have their cake and eat it too: first, Cuccinelli, so strongly supported by the Tea Party, will lose, which will strike a blow to the morale of Tea Party voters everywhere. Second, they will be able to blame the libertarians for Cuccinelli’s loss. After all, he was the GOP-sanctioned guy, and if it weren’t for Sarvis, he might have prevailed. On the same token, they’ll wring their hands about how Cuccinelli was probably not the right guy, because he was too hard right, too sympathetic to Tea Party radicals. Anyone flying a gadsden flag or thinking of voting libertarian should recognize they need to fall back in line and back the guy who can win next time. The compassionate conservative. The moderate with nice hair and teeth. No more pipe dreams. No more third party votes.

A Cuccinelli loss will become a rhetorical cudgel for years to come, in every race that matters. And with Chris Christie, the Democrat in Republican’s clothing holding his own double-digit lead in New Jersey, his will be the victory that leads the GOP in a new ideological direction.

As one libertarian to those others of you who might be reading, please, don’t vote for Sarvis. The stakes are too high, and the difference between Cuccinelli and McAuliffe too stark. Let’s give them a surprise upset.

Let’s win a victory for liberty and elect Ken Cuccinelli.

]]>https://www.catholicvote.org/lies-libertarians-and-the-future-the-virginia-election-is-a-bellwether-for-the-nation/feed/0A Rallying Cry For Virginia, And For Decencyhttps://www.catholicvote.org/a-rallying-cry-for-virginia-and-for-decency/
https://www.catholicvote.org/a-rallying-cry-for-virginia-and-for-decency/#commentsWed, 30 Oct 2013 14:51:12 +0000Steve Skojechttp://www.catholicvote.org/?p=55489In less than a week, Virginians will go to the polls to elect a new governor.

On the ticket are two contenders: Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia’s current Attorney General — a pro-life, pro-business, small-government, constitutionalist Catholic father of seven children; and Terry McAuliffe, former head of the DNC — a pro-abortion, tax-and-spend, pro-Obamacare, progressive, anti-Catholic…”Catholic. ”

The polls are not promising. Some show McAuliffe with a double-digit lead. The Real Clear Politics average gives McAuliffe a 9-point advantage, almost exactly the same margin of votes that libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis is draining from Cuccinelli’s likely voters, despite Cuccinelli’s endorsements from libertarian luminaries Ron and Rand Paul.

Something that all of those issues have in common? Cuccinelli’s involvement, whether he was leading the charge, as he did against Obamacare, or working behind the scenes, as with Virginia’s rejection of Common Core.

Cuccinelli is also the reason Virginia has “Choose Life” license plates that help fund crisis pregnancy centers, a victory he won while still in the state senate. My wife was very involved in that effort, and the letter she received from then-Senator Cuccinelli is indicative of his true concern for the dignity of human life (click to enlarge):

This is a man that Terry McAuliffe, with big out-of-state donors and being campaigned for by heavy-hitters like President Obama and former President Bill Clinton, is calling an “extremist.” (Demonizing rhetoric like “extremist”, “jihadist”, and “terrorist” are being increasingly utilized by the Left to describe decent Americans.) That McAuliffe has no problem lying about Cuccinelli’s stand on issues to discredit him should speak volumes about his character. Columnist Brent Bozell writes:

McAuliffe is running a transparently, viciously anti-Catholic campaign all over television, trashing Ken Cuccinelli as a woman-hating extremist for backing proposals that line up with Catholic-church teachings on abortion, contraception and divorce. Any reporter with 15 minutes to kill can discover that.

In the D.C. area, TV viewers are inundated with McAuliffe ads that claim, “Cuccinelli tried to ban common forms of birth control.” Women echo: “Even the pill! Even the pill!” Then four people echo, one after the other, he’s “way too extreme for Virginia.” McAuliffe supporters in the “NextGen PAC” even accused Cuccinelli of “wanting to eliminate all forms of birth control.”

Cuccinelli has never supported a bill or taken a campaign stand for banning contraceptive pills, and McAuliffe knows it. In 2007, then-state Sen. Cuccinelli supported a “personhood” bill that simply stated, “life begins at the moment of fertilization.” Abortion advocates have twisted that simple sentence into some kind of church invasion of the state.

This sort of hyperbolic mischaracterization is contagious. On a local online forum where Virginians have been discussing gubernatorial candidates, one poster refers derogatorily to Cuccinelli as “The Kooch”:

THe Kooch era:

Return to blue laws — ABC stores will only be open for three hours per day.

Return to back room abortions — get the clothes hangers ready.

Return to Creationism study — throw out the science textbooks.

Return to dress hems below the knee — mandatory dress code at state government jobs.

There’s so much more out there on the Internet if you feel like wading through the muck. The popular blog Wonkette describes Cuccinelli as (forgive me for repeating it here, but I’m not going to link to it) the “Butt-Sex Banning Virginia AG” — this because of Cuccinelli’s support of an anti-sodomy law that would have shielded a 17-year-old girl from a 47-year-old sexual predator. This is the so-called tolerance of the left. This is the level of political discourse we are dealing with. It’s not about facts or information, it’s about ignorant, reflexive, party-affiliated marching orders.

Decency is dying. We’re seeing it all the time. Those of us who care to do the heavy lifting are fighting for every inch of ground against a government that is out of control, not just at the federal level but increasingly in our states as well.

I am not a native Virginian. I am from New York. I love both states for various reasons, but all the things I left New York to escape are coming to Virginia. We have to stop it.

If you are a Virginian, YOUR VOTE MATTERS. Get out there and vote. If you’re considering voting libertarian in this election, please reconsider. I consider myself a libertarian who supports the third party option, but there is nothing that Robert Sarvis will bring to the table that’s worth losing this election to Terry McAuliffe, a dishonest, crass candidate who has benefited from voter ignorance and fabricated class-warfare — as well as an often-complicit media — not substance or character.

If you are not a Virginian, please pray for us on November 5th. We may just need a miracle.

Ken Cuccinelli is a good and decent man. He has a plan for jobs, and for fiscal responsibility. He is unequivocally pro-life, a constitutionalist, and wants the government to stay in its place. Many will be voting against him not because they know what he stands for, but simply because of the overwhelming number of attack ads that have been run almost ceaselessly by the better-funded McAuliffe, smearing his character and painting him as some draconian, Victorian figure hell-bent on destroying people’s rights.

He is being characterized as an extremist for merely living his Catholic faith.

If that’s extreme, then the soul of this country is in mortal danger. Please rally for Virginia, and for decency. I fear this election is a bellwether of what is to come in the American political landscape.

]]>https://www.catholicvote.org/a-rallying-cry-for-virginia-and-for-decency/feed/6Video: Obama Calls for an End to Catholic Schoolshttps://www.catholicvote.org/video-obama-calls-for-an-end-to-catholic-schools/
https://www.catholicvote.org/video-obama-calls-for-an-end-to-catholic-schools/#commentsThu, 20 Jun 2013 20:35:23 +0000Thomas Petershttp://www.catholicvote.org/?p=51477Earlier this week in Northern Ireland, Notre Dame honorary-degree holder President Obama called for an end to Catholic schools, in front of an audience of about 2,000 young people — many of them Catholic:

This was part of his official prepared remarks which are now available on the White House website:

“…Because issues like segregated schools and housing, lack of jobs and opportunity — symbols of history that are a source of pride for some and pain for others — these are not tangential to peace; they’re essential to it. If towns remain divided — if Catholics have their schools and buildings, and Protestants have theirs — if we can’t see ourselves in one another, if fear or resentment are allowed to harden, that encourages division. It discourages cooperation.”

I would argue this is actually even worse than it seems at first glance.

After all, under Obama we have seen the rise of a toxic government culture where unelected bureaucrats feel enabled to target and harass American citizens whose political views differ from their own.

Now that President Obama has essentially saw fit to declare open season on Catholic schools abroad, what’s to stop the U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan or other officials in that department from seeing Obama’s remarks as their excuse to start harassing Catholic schools here?

If this sounds crazy, remember how crazy it sounded only a few years ago that Catholic institutions would be forced by the government to pay for contraception and abortifacient pills, or how crazy it sounded only a few months ago that the IRS would intentionally target conservatives for audits and other politically-motivated harassment.

Obama’s remarks also, once again, went out of their way to single out Catholics. As Fr. Z pointed out:

Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a foreign visit to a Islamic nation where he told people on his arrival that they shouldn’t have madrasas. Can you?

Did he when visiting, say, Israel, say “You Jews shouldn’t have synagogue schools and you Muslims shouldn’t have mosque schools.” I can’t remember. Did he?

Of course not — because such comments would rightfully invite criticism and be condemned.

Outside Catholic circles, I don’t see anyone talking about what Obama said about Catholic schools in Ireland.

Protestants should be offended as well.

And here’s my biggest concern — Obama really believes what he said. He really does believe Catholics and Protestants having their own schools is “part of the problem.” And so does the left.

So speak up now, while we still have a chance of grabbing his attention and showing him we’re not going to stand for it.